Category: Sweets

A wonderful recipe for a sweet from The Exile’s Cookbook. It is made with honey (for the re-creation, a very delicate organic sidr one was used), which is heated up and then strained before being cooked again with starch, almonds and saffron. The tricky thing is to prevent it from crystallizing. Once it’s sufficiently thickened, a little olive is soaked in, and then it’s ready to serve. Don’t forget to sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon, for that extra deliciousness! The result is something like a halva and can be eaten hot or cold. The author suggests serving it at the end of the meal, but really it’s just too good not to eat it any other time, whenever you need to satisfy your sweet tooth.   

A delicious sweet made with a dough of semolina flour, as well as eggs, and saffron. The braids are fried in olive oil until they’ve turned golden brown. When they are ready, they are taken out of the pan and drenched in honey spiced with aromatics like pepper, cinnamon, and cassia. Serve with a dusting of sugar. And why not go the extra mile by stuffing them with almonds and sugar — I did!

Persian in origin, the judhaba was one of the emblematic dishes in medieval Arab cuisine, and usually referred to a kind of drip pudding with layers of flatfloaves interspersed with fruit being infused by the basting juices of a chicken roasting above it. Its fame spread across the Mediterranean, to al-Andalus, perhaps even by the famous aesthete Ziryab. However, wherever it went, it was given a new lease of life through a number of permutations, yet all the while retaining its original name.

The judhaba recipe recreated here is drawn from a 13th-century Tuniso-Andalusian cookery book. It differs considerably from its Near Eastern ancestor; it is made without meat, with home-made crepe-thin flatbreads (رقاق, ruqāq) alternating with layers of almonds, sugar, various aromatic spices, and saffron. After pouring on rose water and olive oil, it’s ready for the oven. The author recommends eating it with rose syrup sweetened with sugar and fresh butter, though adds — thankfully — that one can omit the syrup. Either way, it’s amazing, especially when paired with a refreshing pomegranate oxymel (the recipe for which will come in a future post). More importantly, it is just perfect for sharing with that special person on Valentine’s Day!

This recipe is named after its alleged originator, the famous Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mūn (813–33), a patron of the arts and sciences during whose reign many of the Greek scientific works were translated into Arabic. It must have been a very popular dish as recipes can be found in 13th-century Syrian and 15th-century Egyptian cookery books. It is a kind of rice pudding, which could be made with or without meat, as it is here. The process is pretty straightforward; after pounding rice it is boiled in milk, sugar, and sheep’s tail fat (if you don’t have any to hand, just use ghee instead) to a light pudding. It is served with a garnishing of pistachios, pomegranate seeds, and rock candy.

This is a variant of the 13th-century quince jelly (معجون السفرجل, ma’jūn al-safarjal); it is equally medicinal in purpose, as well as being extremely tasty! The quince are pounded and then cooked with honey until you obtain the required consistency. A similar recipe is mentioned by the 11th-century Baghdadi pharmacologist Ibn Jazla, who calls it safarjal murabbā, the latter word being the usual word for ‘jam’ in Standard Arabic. This delicacy can easily be preserved, like any other jam, and I’m pleased to report that it has been tried and tested as an accompaniment to musamman!

This succulent recipe from The Sultan’s Feast requires dates to be boiled in vinegar and honey. When they are ready, they’re transferred to a jar. Colour with saffron, and add musk, rose-water and camphor for extra aromatic flavour. The author suggests leaving the dates to cool down in order to ensure their consistency. An absolutely amazing snack to satisfy those late-afternoon hunger pangs!

There are a few similar recipes for this delicious sweet in 13th-century Egyptian and Syrian cookery books. Their name (خدود الأغاني, khudud al-aghani) is somewhat of a mystery in that it would translate as ‘cheeks of the songs’. However, it is likely that the word is linked to the classical Arabic ghaniya (غانية), which means a beautiful and chaste woman desired by men. Whatever the case may be, the biscuit dough is made with flour, clarified butter, and sesame oil. This will be used to make the slices of the ‘sandwich’. The biscuits are fried and then drenched in rose-water syrup. As for the filler, this is a paste made with flour, sesame oil, musk, syrup, popppy seeds, pistachios, and almonds. When that is done, just smear it on one biscuit slice and top with another. There you have it, the ultimate afternoon sweet! But you’d better invite some guests to help you out — or rather to stop you from polishing off the lot in one go. Consider yourself warned!